Hiking in St. George’s Bermuda

I wrote this post when we got to Bermuda and then got too busy to finish it. I’ll post about the race weekend next, but suffice it to say that the trip was amazing!

Bermuda is gorgeous! Our trip here was a little rough – 3 airplane changes in Miami, 5 gate changes (from one end of the terminal and back several times), and an overnight in a hotel (if by overnight you mean from 11pm-3:00 am).  If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that you should probably never travel internationally with me.

Anyways, we finally made it here on Wednesday morning and spent the day walking around the town of St. George’s and the forts near the town. It was about 4 miles of hilly walking, so I didn’t feel any guilt about not getting in a run that day. The views were amazing and we stopped at a couple of local restaurants for right out of the sea seafood. One of the specialties here is a fish stew that you can either add a sherry pepper sauce or a Goslings black rum sauce too. I highly recommend the rum! So good!

On Thursday morning, Beer Geek persuaded me to walk with him to the end of the St. George’s Island. Apparently I misunderstood him and thought he’d said it was 3 miles roundtrip. Nope, 3 miles each way. On the way out, we took the city way – this included walking on a busy road with no sidewalks and often walls right up against the wall. I felt a bit like we were playing Frogger as we tried to be on the “safest” side of the street. Then we discovered that Google maps neglected to show a very large chain link fence around the power plant. Umm, those 3 miles? Yeah, it was a little over 4 hilly, stressful, road walking miles. But the view was worth it!

While we were at the very end near Ferry Island Fort, we discovered a map of the trail we had been supposed to take. D’oh!

The walk back included a lovely trail, walking down some quiet neighborhood streets, a cut through the St. George’s Club to their stairs to town, and a short walk up Aunt Peggy’s Lane – which left us at the local perfumery. Said perfumery was two short blocks to our AirBNB. Total return distance? 2.5 miles.

After our adventure, we had another nice meal at a local restaurant and then headed to Hamilton for a race meeting. This was followed by a walk around Fort Hamilton and a dinner of fresh tuna and the best lobster mac and cheese I’ve ever had.

The next morning we headed to the Fairmont Southampton as that was the race hotel. I was immediately immersed in race related work and Beer Geek headed out on a bike to explore that end of the island.

Want directions from St. George’s to the Railway Trail: Walk up Queen St. from the Visitor’s Center. Turn left on Aunt Peggy’s Lane. Take a short jog right on Old Maids Lane and you will see an entrance to stairs to the St. George’s Club. 

Go up the stairs, go around the circle at the club to the right, and cut over to Kyber Pass. Walk up Kyber Pass until it becomes Suffering Lane. (I know. And one of the cross streets is Pain Lane.) Walk up Suffering until you reach the Railway Trail, which is a grass and dirt path. Lest you think it is easy now, umm, no. This path will take you to an obvious split in the path. If you go right, you will deadend into the aforementioned chain link fence. If you go left, you will walk down what looks like a driveway and turn right onto Mullet Bay Road. Take the immediate right onto Ferry Road. This is the one section of road walking that is a bit busy, so be careful. Shortly you will see a sign pointing right towards the Railway Trail with a sign below for Bedrock. Turn right and you will see the trail ahead. From there it’s a nice trail walk the rest of the way to the point.